1. Field of the Invention
This invention generally relates to beverage brewers, and methods of brewing and, more particularly, to beverage brewers and methods of brewing in which the quantity of brewing liquid that is delivered to the brewing ingredient and the time period during which the brewing liquid is dispensed into a brewing ingredient holder is automatically controlled, and to beverage ingredient filters in which the ingredient is contained during brewing.
2. Discussion of the Relevant Prior Art
The inventor has determined that there is a common problem associated with all commercial beverage brewers of the drip-type in which the brew liquid is passed through brewing ingredient. The brewing ingredient is ground coffee, ground tea, tea leaves and other like dry beverage ingredients. The beverage brewing liquid is generally plain hot water. The brew ingredients have a residue or structure that contains the essential dry beverage components. When the beverage brewing liquid that is passed through a layer of the dry beverage ingredient during the dispensing period of the brewing cycle and the post-dispense drip period, the dry beverage ingredients are dissolved and released into the beverage brewing liquid upon contact. The brewing ingredient is generally contained within a removable filter that is supported within a brew basket that is movably mounted beneath a brewing liquid dispenser, or dispenser, to receive the hot brewing water. The filter is manually loaded with beverage ingredient and then placed in a filter holder within the brew basket. Each of the brew basket and the filter holder has a generally truncated conical shape with sides that slope inwardly from the open top of the brew basket to the beverage dispenser outlet that is located at the bottom of the brew basket.
The problem with this arrangement is that it is not possible to obtain a uniform contact of the hot brewing water with the ingredient within the brew basket during the dispensing period while the hot water is being dispensed and the subsequent post-dispensing drip period of the brew cycle. In the case of ground coffee, when hot water first makes contact with the coffee gases are generated that causes the coffee grounds to foam upwardly and also to float layers of hot water that have not yet seeped through the upper surface of the layer of hot coffee.
The inventor believes that for this reason and because of the generally conical shape of the layer of beverage ingredient, and despite continuous spraying of the hot brewing water across the upper surface of the beverage ingredient, some of the ingredient, generally nearer the side walls of the brew basket, does not receive sufficient contact with the hot water to strip off all the beverage ingredient component to be dissolved into the water that is being held by the beverage ingredient. The beverage ingredient is therefore wasted. Likewise, other portions of the beverage ingredient, generally closer to the central portion of the brew basket receive too much contact with the hot water, i.e., more contact with the water than needed to dissolve all the beverage ingredient components, and other undesirable ingredient components are dissolved into the brewed beverage. Consequently, optimum brewing of the beverage ingredient is not obtained and the brewing ingredient component that does not dissolve into the hot water because of insufficient hot water contact with the associated brewing ingredient is wasted.
Both the time of contact of the hot water with the beverage ingredient and the amount of hot water that is mixed with a given amount of beverage are critical to optimizing the quality of the resulting brewed beverage. Different types of beverage ingredient, such as different types of coffee, and different forms of a given beverage ingredient, such as a given ground coffee of different degrees of coarseness require different amounts of hot water for optimum brewing of the resulting beverage. Unfortunately, there is another problem of known beverage brewers that exacerbates the nonuniform ingredient saturation problem noted above. The problem is the inability to easily adjust the quantity of hot water that is dispensed without changing the duration of the dispensing time period, and the inability to easily adjust the duration of the dispense period without changing the quantity of hot water that is to be dispensed.
The truncated conical shape of know beverage ingredient filters precludes them from being easily stacked or packaged and accordingly in all known commercial drip-type brewers the conical filters are manually loaded with ingredient at the coffee brewing site.
Reference should be made to U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,000,082 entitled xe2x80x9cBeverage Maker And Method Of Making Beveragexe2x80x9d issued Mar. 19, 1991 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,331,885 entitled xe2x80x9cSemiautomatic Beverage Maker And Methodxe2x80x9d issued Jul. 26, 1994 of the present inventor and the patents cited therein, all of which are incorporated herein by reference, for structural, mechanical and other details of the conventional components of coffee brewers and the like, with reference to the features noted above, and in general with reference to the embodiments described below to the extent conventional elements are disclosed in functional block form only and such details are desired.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,375,508 issued to Knepler et al on Dec. 27, 1994 for a xe2x80x9cDigital Brewer Controlxe2x80x9d mechanisms are shown that enable intermittent dispensing of the hot water into the brew basket. However, this is done solely to slow down the average rate of dispensing, or infusion, of the water into the brew basket to prevent overflowing the brew basket. Such overflowing occurs during continuous dispensing under the special circumstances of decaffeinated coffee and soft water that reduces the rate of outflow from the brew basket. However, there is nothing to suggest using such intermittent flow for purposes of obtaining uniform extraction when dealing with different amounts or different types of coffee.
Accordingly, it is the primary object of the present invention to provide a beverage maker in which the aforementioned problems of known beverage brewers and brewing methods are overcome.
This objective is achieved in part by providing a beverage maker having a heating means, a brewing liquid storage means and a housing therefore, with a dispensing system composed of means for holding a beverage ingredient within a beverage ingredient holder, means for storing a plurality of selectable dispense periods of different duration during which a known quantity of brewing liquid may be passed to the beverage ingredient holder, means for preselecting one of the plurality of selectable stored dispense periods during which the known quantity of brewing liquid is passed to the beverage ingredient holder, and means for automatically, intermittently, delivering the known quantity of brewing liquid into the beverage ingredient holder on a controlled basis during and substantially throughout the one preselected dispense period of the brew cycle.
Preferably, the means for delivering includes an electromechanically controllable dispenser valve with a programmable dispenser valve controller to automatically, in accordance with a predetermined profile stored in association with the preselected one dispense period of the selectable dispense periods, intermittently, open the dispenser valve during the one preselected dispense period of the brewing cycle. Also, in the preferred embodiment, delivering means delivers the brewing liquid into the beverage ingredient holder during the dispensing period of the brewing cycle on a periodic basis. This is achieved by providing the delivering means with a controller having means for dividing each of the plurality of selectable dispense periods into a plurality of dispensing control periods, and means for establishing a duty portion for all of the plurality of dispensing control periods, and in which means for actuating a dispense valve to pass the brewing liquid to the beverage ingredient holder only during the preselected duty portion of each of the plurality of dispensing control periods of the preselected dispense period. 5. The means for establishing establishes an equal duty portion for each of the control periods for which a duty portion is established.
Depending upon the mode of operation and programming, the establishing means selectively establishing different duty portions for different dispensing control periods of the same dispense period in accordance with a predetermined profile. The duty portions may be programmed to increase in duration during successive dispensing control periods occurring during the dispensing period. Alternatively, the duty portions decrease during successive dispensing control periods occurring during the dispensing period. Preferably, also, in which the delivering means includes a computer controller control intermittent delivery of the brewing liquid to the beverage ingredient holder during the one preselected dispense period.
In addition, preferably, 10. The delivering means includes means for injecting the brewing liquid through a field of substantially uniformly spaced apart dispensing holes of substantially the same size located in coextensive overlying relationship with respect to a brewing liquid receiving opening of the beverage ingredient holder. The ingredient holder supports all the ingredient in a substantially straight tubular configuration with spaced parallel upper and lower surfaces substantially entirely overlain by the field of dispensing holes. The holder supports a lower surface of the ingredient upon an ingredient support surface that is substantially parallel to the field of dispensing holes.
Also, in the preferred embodiment, the the delivering means includes means for controlling a dispenser valve with a programmable dispenser valve controller to automatically, intermittently, open the dispenser valve during the one preselected saved dispense period of the brewing cycle, means for storing a plurality of different quantities of beverage, means for preselecting one quantity of beverage from a plurality of different quantities, and means for automatically establishing a duration of the intermittent periods of delivery during the dispensing period to intermittently deliver the preselected quantity substantially throughout the preselected dispense time period. In addition or alternatively, 19. The means for intermittently delivering includes means for dividing the stored dispensing period into a plurality of stored control periods each having a duration on the order of fifteen seconds, and means for delivering brewing liquid during a selected portion of each of the control periods during the preselected dispensing period.
The objective is also obtained by providing a beverage brewer having a heating means, a brewing liquid storage means and a housing therefore, with a dispensing system having means for storing a plurality of dispense time periods of a brew cycle during which a known quantity of brewing liquid is to be dispensed onto a top of a beverage ingredient, means for preselecting one of the plurality of stored dispense time periods, means for storing a plurality of control periods into which the dispense time may be divided, means for preselecting one of the plurality of stored control periods during which beverage liquid is capable of being dispensed onto a top surface of the beverage ingredient layer in accordance with the one of the stored dispense time periods that has been selected, means for storing a duty portion for each of the control periods based on the dispense time period and the know quantity of beverage to be dispensed, means for automatically selecting one of the plurality of duty portions for each of the control periods based on the dispense time period and the known quantity to be dispensed and means for dispensing the brewing liquid onto the top surface during the selected portion of each of the selected control periods to dispense all of the known quantity of brewing liquid during and substantially throughout the preselected dispense period.
Achieving the objective of the invention is also performed by providing a beverage brewer having a heating means, a brewing liquid storage means and a housing therefore, with a dispensing system with means for preselecting a total quantity to be dispensed during a dispense period composed of a plurality of control periods of a brewing cycle during which brewing liquid is capable of being dispensed onto a top of a beverage ingredient layer, means for automatically selecting a duty portion of at least some of the plurality of control periods during which the brewing liquid is capable of being dispensed onto a top surface of the beverage ingredient layer of at least some of the control periods in accordance with the total amount to be dispensed that has been preselected, and means for dispensing the brewing liquid onto the top surface during the duty portions of the control periods that have been selected until the total quantity has been dispensed substantially throughout the dispense period.